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These next 4 years belong to the Republican Party. They will own whatever emerges from their ruling triumvirate…all 3 branches of government, headed up by Trump and his sidekick, Steve Bannon. Republicans have hit the jackpot…the power ball lottery of politics!!!

I am more than willing to let Republicans take full credit for everything and anything their dynamic duo has a hand in…the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Two weeks into this administration, we’ve been hit with an abundance of…the worst and the ugliest.

With millions of Americans rising up in protest against the dictatorship of Trump/Bannon,it’s unfathomable that Republican politicians continue to rubberstamp whatever those two send down the pike. Whether they are trying to hang onto their jobs, including health insurance in which their constituents should likewise share, or glory in their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cram all their policies down our throats, Republicans like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are complicit in our country’s descent into immorality under this presidency.

The so-called Capitol Hill experts are scurrying about like obedient kindergarteners effecting policy for the dictators, themselves new to the political arena. Trump and Bannon must laugh themselves silly behind closed doors, as well they should. They have accomplished what no one before them has been able to do, including the billionaire Koch brothers and their Tea Party followers.

Neither Trump nor Bannon have made a secret of their pasts. Both were widely written about during the months leading up to the election. It’s obvious that few cared to educate themselves, preferring instead to buy whatever these two men were selling.

It’s no surprise we’ve landed where we have, with all of us paying for the immorality of some. Our democracy is suffering a seismic, constitutional earthquake. Whether or not morality remains the underpinning of our freedom is dependent upon those willing to stand up to autocrats and their minions. And as we’ve witnessed recently, the number of freedom fighters number in the thousands.

Let’s hope the combined power of the White House and the Republicans on Capitol Hill does not thwart the resistance effort. It’s essential we continue to play defense against the Trump/Bannon autocracy throughout the next four years.

Kelly Anne Conway, Trump campaign manager-turned-senior advisor, provided poignant insight into this presidency. If the facts don’t suit, turn to “alternative facts.” Trump and all who pledge allegiance to him will subvert universal truth in order to further their hard-right agenda.

Personally, I plan to continue writing posts aimed at keeping the focus on a White House occupied by autocrats.

Peter Thiel, billionaire owner of the online site “Pay Pal,” supported Trump’s run for the presidency and is part of his transition team. Thiel, like Bannon, no longer believes in the America for which we now stand. Both want it upended and refashioned according to what they believe.

According to a November 2016 Politico Magazine article, “The Anti-Democratic Worldview of Steve Bannon and Peter Thiel” by Jedediah Purdy, Everett professor of law at Duke Law School…

Bannon believes that the political force rising to defend all these values today is “a global tea party” that links Trump, Brexit voters, the anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic National Front in France, and Narendra Modi’s nationalist government in India. These groups, Bannon says, may be incidentally racist or attract some racist elements, but those elements will “get washed out” and leave their pure and proper value, which is the nationalist defense of enlightened capitalism. They are the ground troops of the coming struggle, rebuilding a West that can defend itself and is worth defending.

Thiel, a professed Libertarian, has said that he no longer believes in the compatibility between democracy and freedom.

Finally, according to Purdy…

This much is clear: Bannon and Thiel believe their ideas have found the perfect host organism. They won’t be the last.

Wow! Republicans are running away from themselves. Trump and his followers are turning on the “establishment,” and the “establishment” can’t distance themselves fast enough…albeit a little late…from their presidential front runner.

Perhaps the Republican “establishment” have only themselves to blame for being done in by rogue candidate Trump. Former House Speaker, Bill Boehner, and current Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, could not control the right-wing extremists in Congress. As a result these mostly junior congressmen were able to unhinge the proverbial Pandora’s Box. And what did they find inside? Donald Trump!

Even Ted Cruz, the Tea Party’s darling, could not imagine anyone wresting the Oval Office away from him, least of all Trump, the darling of Wall Street investors. Evidently, Tea Partiers and others, among them White Supremacists, have combined forces to carry Trump all the way to the White House. They see him as the man who gets them what they want, once he’s ensconced in Washington. If, and that’s a big IF, they succeed in crowning Trump president, the Republican “establishment” will have a bigger fight on their hands than they did with President Obama or that they would even get from Hillary Clinton. Trump will steamroll any opposition to his agenda. Diplomacy is not his style, and negotiation is tolerable to a point. And as he has demonstrated time and again, Trump has a low threshold for opposition. He escalates to the “boiling point” pretty quickly.

“I’m going to get along great with Congress. Paul Ryan, I don’t know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him,” the front-runner for his party’s nomination said during his Super Tuesday speech. “And if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price.”

(Ben Kamisar…The Hill, online)

Showing himself to be a man who talks out of both sides of his mouth…while Trump was kind of disavowing David Duke and the KKK…a known racist leaves no doubt as to Trump’s campaign reaching out to white supremacists.

Edwards talked to the real estate mogul’s eldest son and campaign surrogate, Donald Trump, Jr., last Saturday for his “pro-white” radio show, “The Political Cesspool.” Previous guests on the show have included Neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and Ku Klux Klan leaders.

Edwards heralded the 20-minute interview in a blog post flagged by Little Green Footballs, that boasted about his access inside a Trump rally in Memphis, Tennessee, last Saturday, where Edwards was broadcasting his show live. He said Trump’s campaign gave Edwards and his co-hosts full press credentials and “VIP” parking near the event.

Edwards said he and his co-hosts have attended three different Trump rallies in recent months: One in Illinois, one in Arkansas, and the rally in Memphis. With press credentials from Trump, the white supremacists feel “every bit as legit” as members of the traditional media, he added.

A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not respond to questions late Tuesday about how Edwards was credentialed, or why Donald Trump Jr. gave an interview to a white supremacist talk show.

The question is…will the Republican “establishment” bend to the will of the people for whom Trump stands? Including…

A little bit ago blogger friend,earthriderjudy,kindly designated me a recipient of The Lovely Blogger Award.In doing so, she indicated that her choice was based upon my promotion of others’ blogs. She went on to say that the posts she most enjoyed were those about myself and my family. While I delighted in her validation of hugmamma’s mind, body, and soul,my current involvement in speaking my political mind makes acceptance of the award difficult.

earthriderjudypersonally refrains from promoting her political opinions in the public arena…for very good reasons. Her former career as a reporter, and current one as a teacher have influenced her position.

While I respect her stance…I do not share it.

The 2012 Presidential election is too significant for me not to involve myself personally. At least in the writing of my own opinions.

I listen 24/7 to coverage of the campaign, and read whatever comes across my laptop to do with both Presidential candidates.

My overriding concern has been Mitt Romney‘s morphing of the truth to please specific audiences. The most shocking, of course, was his telling remark to donors, behind closed doors, that he was disconnected and unconcerned about the 47% he’d written off as President Obama’s followers. He referred to them as those who felt entitled to the government’s help.

It’s a fact that these include military personnel whose salaries are tax-exempt when at war, and which, in many cases, are insufficient to sustain their families back home. Some depend upon food stamps to survive.

When my mom needed surgery for a hernia she’d had for decades, Medicaid provided the funds for that, as well as additional medical help she’d not been able to afford as a widow of many years, with a family of 9 to raise on her own.

My mom died some years ago, but she might have been one of the 47% from whom Romney would distance himself.

There are many other instances in which Romney has shown his chameleon-like ability to transform himself from “severe Conservative,” to Tea Party extremist, to the current centrist Conservative.

In addition to Romney’s vacillation on important issues…women’s rights to choose and equal pay for equal work…self-deportation of immigrants…specific government cuts he would make to balance his 20% tax cuts across the board, including for the top 1%…repealing Obamacare, in toto or in part…running mate Paul Ryan‘s Medicare voucher system for those age 55 and under…I have other major reservations about Romney’s bid for the White House.

As an Independent who doesn’t tend toward the Republican Party’s platform, I hadn’t kept abreast of who rocked their world. In other words, who are the “movers and shakers” of the Republican Party.

I got more than I expected when I read The Obama Hate Machine by Bill Press.

Right-wing extremists, billionaire oil-men, the Kochs support and fund the Tea Party movement, ensuring that their politicians represent the interests of Koch Industries, Inc.‘s “bottom line.” Front group, Americans for Prosperity…

… hosted a Website offering ‘Tea Party Talking Points.’ It arranged for buses to transport protestors to and from Washington, while also organizing companion rallies in Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas, New Jersey, and other states. It also circulated a memo with instructions on how to disrupt town hall meetings. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann described the Koch Brothers as the grand puppeteers of the Tea Party crowd, staying out of sight but ‘telling them what to say and which causes to take on and also giving them lots of money to do it with.’

The Kochs have also more than dabbled in the environmental debate. In their own interests the brothers have contributed heavily to the Republican Congress.

January 5, 2011, was a big day for John Boehner. After twenty years of climbing up and falling down the leadership ladder in the House of Representatives, he had finally made it to the top and was about to be sworn in as Speaker of the House for the 112th Congress.

It was a big day for David Koch, too. After all, he and his brother Charles had done more than any two other fat cats to help Republicans win the House–and he was there in the chamber with his top lobbyists when Speaker Boehner took the oath of office.

Not only that: Koch was awarded a private meeting with Boehner, while his top political deputy, Tim Phillips, enjoyed a one-on-one with representative Fred Upton of Michigan, the new chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

…The Los Angeles Times reported that Koch Industries and its employees were the largest single donor to members of the panel, more generous than ExxonMobil. They shelled out $279,500 to twenty-two of the committee’s thirty-one Republicans.

…And the Kochs’ generosity soon paid off. The budget bill passed by the Boehner-controlled House not only cut EPA’s funding for the 2011 fiscal year by three billion dollars; it abolished most of the agency’s authority to do its job. As decreed by House Republicans, EPA would be banned from spending any money to clean up Chesapeake Bay; from enforcing new water-quality standards in Florida; from issuing new solid-waste standards that would include coal ash from power plants as a hazardous waste; from publishing new air-quality standards for coarse particulate matter; and–biggest prize of all for Koch Industries–from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from stationary sources.

…It was a big step toward the goal Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore in 2006 of eliminating 90 percent of all laws and government regulations in order to strengthen the ‘culture of prosperity.’ ”

The wholesale retreat from environmental protection led to this conclusion by California’s Henry Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee: ‘It apparently no longer matters in Congress what health experts and scientists think. All that seems to matter is what Koch Industries think.’ “

For those of you who so obviously love the world in which we live, as evidenced by the treasure trove of cherished photographs I’ve seen throughout the Word Press blog community, be very wary of the long reach of Koch Industries’ tentacles. ”

…Koch Industries has a bad record of oil spills and air and water pollution. A 2010 University of Massachusetts at Amherst study cited it as one of the top ten air polluters in the country. And it has long been the most-outspoken corporate opponent of any climate-change legislation, because any such government program would inevitably interfere with what it believes to be its right to pollute with impunity.

One of the most damning accounts of the Kochs’ role in undermining global-warming legislation came in a March 2010 study published by Greenpeace: ‘Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine.’ In its report, Greenpeace traces almost fifty million dollars in funds allocated over the course of a decade from three different Koch-controlled foundations to climate-denial front groups working to scuttle policies aimed at stopping global warming.

– $360,000 to the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy to produce its own documentary rebutting Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

– And $360,000 to the little-known Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, or FREE.

…FREE, headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, operates way below the radar. Its target audience is comprised of federal judges and state supreme court justices, whom they pay to attend seminars where, according to their Web site, FREE’s ‘scientists’ apply ‘economics and scientific analysis to generate and explore alternative and innovative solutions to environmental problems.’ In other words, we’ll pay you to come to Montana and learn why global warming is nothing to worry about, so you can then go home and rule accordingly.

…the Koch propaganda blitz is working. In 2008, both John McCain and Barack Obama agreed that global warming was real, and man-made, and that government had to act. Most Americans agreed. Today, that situation has reversed. Obama’s still pushing for climate-change legislation, but he’s been blocked by Republicans in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, public opinion about climate change has shifted significantly.

An October 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center found that only 57 percent of Americans believed there was solid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, down from 71 percent in April 2008. At the same time, fewer Americans saw global change as a serious priority. Van Jones, now with the Center for American Progress, credits anti-climate change ads paid for by the Koch Brothers with the dramatic decline in public support for action on global warming.

Charles Koch is a smart man. Smart enough to know that he’s “putting one over” on the American public. He admitted as much “in his remarkable op-ed in the March 1, 2011, Wall Street Journal…”

Koch himself acknowledges that Americancorporations today have been able to use their considerable financial clout to win too many concessions from government. It’s not good for taxpayers, and it’s not good for business, either, says the Journal, summing up Koch’s article, because ‘crony capitalism and bloated government prevent entrepeneurs from producing the products and services that make people’s lives better.’ ”

Following Koch’s own logic, it’s clear that the massive influence of big corporations on our political process must be curbed immediately. And we need to take a stand against wealthy plutocrats who would subvert the American political system to make themselves even richer. On that point, at least, it seems, we and the Brothers Koch can agree. As Charles Koch himself might say, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’ “

If the American Presidency is to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, shouldn’t the Brothers Koch be given consideration. They are not risk-takers. They only bet on a sure thing. And they have an empire already in place to guarantee their success. Consider the long list of organizations fully or partially funded by the Kochs.

THE ARMS OF THE KOCHTOPUS

FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are just the tip of the Koch iceberg. Because they operate through various family foundations, and because not all organizations receiving Koch contributions are required to reveal the names of donors, no one but the Koch Brothers themselves knows how much money they have poured into their anti-Obama crusade. But it certainly adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Kochs pour their money out of three family foundations, with combined assets of over sixty million dollars: the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Claude R. Lambe Foundation (named after a close family friend who died). Again, we don’t know them all, but among those organizations…

If, and hopefully it’s a BIG IF, Romney is elected President of the United States of America…he will most likely serve…as proxy for Charles and David Koch. If not directly, then indirectly…through Boehner and the Tea Party obstructionists in Congress. In unison, they will all hold Romney’s feet to the fire.

An Urban Institute analysis of Ryan’s budget proposal from last year found block grants would lead states to drop between 14 million and 27 million people from Medicaid by 2021 and cut reimbursements to health care providers by 31%.

Up to 10 million people could lose nutrition assistance since $134 billion would be cut from the program over 10 years, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

And at least 62% of Ryan’s $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts over 10 years come from programs that serve the poor, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“This budget is Robin Hood in reverse — on steroids,” said Robert Greenstein, the center’s president, when the Ryan plan was announced. “It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times.”

ROMNEY…Lower top rate to 25%, shift to make it easier for U.S. firms to limit or avoid federal taxes on profits earned overseas. Revenue neutral.

RYAN…similar to Romney plan, would lower top rate to 25%, shift to make it easier for U.S. firms to limit or avoid federal taxes on overseas profits.

Medicare…
OBAMA…Keep 2010 tax health law. Change the way the government pays hospitals and other health providers. Raise premiums or copays for some beneficiaries, particularly upper income. Total savings of $248 billion over 10 years.

ROMNEY…Repeal the 2010 health-care law. Raise enrollment age to 67 (from 65 today). Offer choice of existing Medicare or new program that would provide vouchers to pay part or all of private-insurance premiums.

RYAN…Slowly raise eligibility age to 67 and give those younger than 55 the option of a privately run plan paid in part by the government or keeping a Medicare-type plan. No change for those 55 or older. Would cost $205 billion less than White-House’s budget over 10 years.

Medicaid…
OBAMA…Proceed with 2010 law expanding Medicaid, rework the formula on how much federal government gives states the program. Save roughly $72 billion, combined with other changes.

ROMNEY…Turn Medicaid into a federal block grant program, giving control and flexibility to states. Unspecified savings.

RYAN…Turn Medicaid into a federal block grant program, giving control and flexibility to states. Saves $770 billion over 10 years, compared with White House plan, according to Ryan estimate.

Defense spending…
OBAMA…About $487 billion in cuts over 10 years from Pentagon’s current plan. Appropriate $525 billion for it in fiscal 2013.

Ryan…an attractive, charismatic, 42 year-old man. A self-professed geek, fitness fanatic, pro-life Catholic, embodiment of the values later made popular by the Tea Party, and ardently supported by the National Rifle Association.

While Ryan did not mince words about his opinion of the President, I applaud the candidate for heartily approving a black man occupying the White House. Paraphrasing Ryan’s words…he thinks it’s “cool.” It’s just that Obama’s not the right one. An opinion to which Ryan is totally entitled.

Also of notable interest were the different effects the loss of a parent had upon Obama and Ryan. The former enacted healthcare for all, including coverage for pre-existing conditions, while the latter wants to…obliterate ensured healthcare for all.

The President and Ryan have already “tangoed” over their visions of America’s future. Their debates would probably be more Olympian than those scheduled between Obama and Romney. Will the candidate speak for himself…or for Ryan?

Paul Davis Ryan was born on January 29, 1970 in Janesville, Wisconsin. Father Paul Ryan Sr. worked as an attorney, and mother Betty Ryan was a stay-at-home mom. Ryan has one sister, Janet, and two brothers, Tobin and Stan.

After graduating from Miami University in Ohio with a degree in economics and political science in 1992, Paul Ryan began working as a marketing consultant for a family run branch of a Wisconsin construction company. He entered politics a few years later, working as a legislative aide for U.S. Senator Bob Kasten, and later for Senator Sam Brownback and New York Republican Representative Jack Kemp. Ryan became interested in government after reading the literature of Ayn Rand, with whom he disagrees philosophically; Ryan has said that he rejects Rand’s emphasis on an individualist philosophy because his personal beliefs center on collectivism, a group-based philosophy.

There are two basic ways of understanding the relationship between individuals in a group. The first way is individualism, which states that each individual is acting on his or her own, making their own choices, and to the extent they interact with the rest of the group, it’s as individuals. Collectivism is the second way, and it views the group as the primary entity, with the individuals lost along the way.

Of primary concern to some of my generation and those that precede mine, Ryan’s economic proposal as set forth for the RepublicanParty some time ago, proposes to privatize Medicare and do away with Social Security as we know it. While these might be ideal solutions theoretically, those who have paid into the system, but have not yet reaped any benefits…will have to fend for themselves. Who in their late 60’s is adept at wending their way through the minefield that is a health insurance carrier’s bureaucracy?

And those senior citizens who are already borderline impoverished, will most likely sacrifice their health in choosing to put food in their bellies. Vouchers for $5,000, as supported by Ryan, will never cover the escalating costs to cure the aging sick in our society.

The middle class will join the ranks of the homeless, skyrocketing their numbers into orbit in no time.

A youthful 42, the epitome of health, with a lovely wife and 2 young children, Ryan represents the future. His father and grandfather died of heart disease. With their passing, perhaps his personal ties to the older generations are easily severed.

Throwing off the shackles of the past is Ryan’s choice. Start over again. Amputate the body parts to keep the life intact, such as it is. No matter that the “parts” represent millions of people who will likely die in the process for lack of health care, rooves over their heads, food in their stomachs. They should be sacrificed for the good of society. Survival of the fittest, after all.

Ryan will have health coverage for himself and his family. His paycheck will continue…on the backs of those who go without. Some may even sacrifice their lives for this, their fellow man. No matter. The past and present should make way for the future. The aged and downtrodden are already on their way out anyway…aren’t they? Let’s hurry them along.

Better the wealthy spare a few dollars for the less fortunate…than all men, women, and children fending for themselves. Pockets of people collecting to form societies unto themselves.

If Obama is perceived as attempting to drive a wedge between the wealthy and everyonelse, Ryan and his running mate will cement that division as did the Berlin Wall which separated East and West Germany.

Ryan said in an interview when his economic plan was first proposed that it’s better to suffer the consequences now, for they would be much worse if such action was delayed. I wonder if he is prepared for the fallout should it be seismic?

More thefts, more killings, more greed, more disdain for the law.

If those with, have no regard for those without…then why shouldn’t it be just as acceptable…the other way around? Consider this when next you hear of some random killing in the news.

Ryan’s own constituents dispute his premise about economic recovery as exhibited on this youtube video.

Ryan claims to have “given up fear for Lent.” And so he has no fear of the consequences his proposal would effect. Seems to me he needs a little more roughening around the edges…like living outside the box…than what he’s experienced in the last 7 years securely ensconced in Washington politics…with health insurance…and a steady paycheck…and power to write and rewrite our governing laws.

I like to think we’re in the midst of downing cod liver oil…and we’re half-way through the dose. And for rampant inflammation, like what our country is now experiencing economically…swallowing healthful medicine is more productive…and humane…than severing limbs.